This Morning: More BBRY Downgrades, Dell and ISS, Cheers for Apple

By Tiernan Ray

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

Shares of Nokia (NOK) are up 15 cents, or 3.8%, at $3.89, after the company said it would buy out the other half of its joint venture Nokia-Siemens Networks from partner Siemens AG (SI) for €1.7 billion.

The move has prompted one upgrade on Nokia stock this morning, by J.P. Morgan’s Sandeep Deshpande, from Underweight to Overweight,

Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) are down 16 cents, or 1.5%, at 10.30, as the Street continues to process the disappointing fiscal Q1 report on Friday morning.

The shares have received three downgrades this morning, that I can see, with Needham & Co., and Deutsche Bank cutting to the equivalent of a Hold rating, and Societe Generale cutting to Hold.

Needham’s Charlie Wolf, cutting his rating to Underperform, writes that he had “assumed that sales of BlackBerries would rebound as members of the installed base upgraded to the new models,” and now concludes “the fault lies with the devices themselves. While they generally received favorable reviews, neither has a “wow” factor that would translate into a “no-brainer” upgrade.”

“We now believe the upgrade cycle of the Q10 in the second and third quarters could create a “false spring,” with sales tapering off once pent-up demand is satisfied.”

Raymond James’s Tavis McCourt this morning raised his rating on shares of Apple (AAPL) to Strong Buy from Outperform, while maintaining a $600 price target, writing that mobile computing is entering “phase 2,” which is “the expansion of smartphone chipsets/OS/ecosystems into autos, TVs, appliances and probably uses not currently thought of for computing devices.”

“Apple’s dominance of high income consumers and the vertically integrated model positions it well to capture the largest share of profits as mobile computing moves beyond smartphones and tablets.” McCourt also raised his iPhone sales estimate for the quarter ended in June to 28 million units from 27 million, citing trade-in programs in the U.S.

Apple shares today are up $10, or 2.5%, at $406.53.

CNBC‘s David Faber this morning reflects on the July 18th vote by Dell (DELL) shareholders as to whether to accede to CEO Michael Dell‘s $13.65 buyout offer, or instead, Carl Icahn‘s $14 tender offer to recapitalize the PC maker.

Faber reports this morning that “Mr. Icahn has successfully secured $5.3 billion in financing from Jefferies to aid that recap plan, which the special committee still claims has a funding gap.”

But Faber goes on to say, “What may prove extraordinarily important here is the view of ISS [Institutional Shareholder Services]. Having spoken with a number of people attending those meetings, they say [Michael] Dell and Silver Lake were not particularly well-received by ISS. As for Mr. Icahn, at least he does have $5.3 billion to put to that recap plan.”

Dell shares today are up 3 cents at $13.36.

May sales of semiconductors were announced over the weekend by the Semiconductor Industry Association, showing sales rose 1.3% from the year-earlier level, to $24.7 billion, and 4.6% higher than the April level. It was “the largest sequential monthly increase in sales for the industry since March 2010,” the Association says. J.P. Morgan’s Chris Danely this morning writes that should be good for Xilinx (XLNX), Texas Instruments (TXN), Analog Devices (ADI), and ON Semiconductor (ONNN).

In case you missed it, Michael De La Merced and Brian Stelter with The New York Times’s DealBookthis morning report that John Malone, Liberty Media‘s (LMCA) Chairman, is looking to use Charter Communications (CHTR), in which he holds a 27% stake, to try and acquire Time Warner Cable (TWC), citing multiple unnamed sources. The authors note Malone could be trying to “upend a status quo dominated by giants like Comcast (CMCSA).”

Charter shares are down 43 cents, or 0.4%, at $123.42, while Time Warner Cable stock is off 24 cents at $112.24.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.